The Penguin Book of Christmas Stories by Jessica Harrison

Author:Jessica Harrison [Andersen, Hans Christian; Carter, Angela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241396711
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2019-10-03T00:00:00+00:00

FRANK O’CONNOR

Christmas Morning

We were living up Blarney Lane, in Cork, at the time, in one of the little whitewashed cottages at the top, on the edge of the open country. It was a tiny house – a kitchen with two little bedrooms off it – and the kitchen door opened to the street. There were only the four of us – my parents, my brother Sonny, and myself. I suppose, at the time I’m speaking of, Sonny was six or seven and I was two years older. I never really liked that kid. He was the mother’s pet; a proper little Mummy’s darling, always racing after her to tell her what mischief I was up to. I really believe it was to spite me that he was so smart at his books. In a queer sort of way, he seemed to know that that was what the mother valued most, and you might say he spelled his way into her favour. ‘Mummy,’ he’d say, ‘will I call Larry in for his t-e-a?’ Or ‘Mummy, the k-e-t-e-l is boiling.’ And, of course, if he made a mistake, the mother would correct him, and next time he’d have it right and get stuffed up with conceit. ‘Mummy,’ he’d say, ‘aren’t I a good speller?’ We could all be good spellers if we went on like that. Mind you, it wasn’t that I was stupid, or anything of the kind, but somehow I was restless and I could never fix my mind on the one thing for long. I’d do the lessons for the year before or the lessons for the next year – anything except the ones I should be doing. And in the evenings I loved to get out to the Dempseys, the kids who lived in the house opposite and were the leaders of all the blackguarding that went on in the road. Not that I was a rough child, either. It was just that I liked excitement, and I never could see what it was in schooling attracted the mother.

‘I declare to goodness, Larry,’ she said once, catching me with my cap in my hand, ‘you ought to be ashamed of yourself, with your baby brother better than you at reading.’

‘Ah, I’ll do it when I come back,’ I said.

‘The dear knows what’ll become of you,’ she said. ‘If you’d only mind your lessons, you might be something worth while – an engineer or a clerk.’

‘’Tis all right, Mummy,’ Sonny said. ‘I’ll be a clerk.’

‘I’m going to be a soldier,’ I said.

‘God help us!’ my mother said. ‘I’m afraid that’s all you’ll ever be fit for.’ Sometimes, I used to think she was just a shade simple. As if a fellow could be anything better than a soldier!

And then it began to draw on to Christmas, with the days getting shorter and, coming on to dusk, the crowds getting bigger in the streets, and I began to think of all the things I might get from Santa Claus. The

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